Building Partnerships and Linkages

ASA should establish partnerships and linkages with all categories of stakeholders, including regional research organizations and networks, regional training organizations and networks, the CGIAR system, regional political and economic organizations, national and non-governmental organizations and the donor community.

Apart from thousands of national and non-governmental institutions, ASA has a wide variety of potential partners within Africa. These include a large number of international research organisations, many of which belong to the CGIAR system; regional and sub-regional organisations and networks, such as FARA, ASARECA, CORAF/WECARDD and SADC, which are mandated to coordinate R&D in the region by receiving and allocating research resources from development partners; regional training networks such as the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) and the African Network for Agriculture Agroforestry and Natural Resources Education (ANAFE) whose mandates are to manage capacity building resources for the region; and regional political and economic organisations such as the AU, NEPAD and COMESA.

ASA has three main strengths that favour its growth, operations and influence as a regional scientific network. Firstly, potential members of ASA are distributed throughout Africa, thus providing an opportunity for a bigger network. Secondly, many ASA members are already involved in country networks and bilateral development projects. Thirdly, more than 90% of ASA members are currently employed in influential positions within the continent.

As a PAN-African network, ASA is favoured by the present trend in project funding since most donors prefer projects that involve multi-institutional and multi-country collaboration. This requirement by development partners has greatly enhanced collaboration between international and regional research organizations on the one part, and national research and extension systems on the other, thereby fostering access by end users to technologies emanating form the research efforts.

Strategic Objective 4: Build strong Partnerships and Linkages

Strategies:

a. Establish and maintain a database of potential partners

Through studies and visits, ASA will make efforts to understand the roles of international, regional and national organisations with a view to identifying potential partners. Target partners will include: Global and regional research organisations, such as GFAR and FARA; sub-regional research organisations such as ASARECA, CORAF and SADC; CGIAR centres and other international research organisations such as IARCs; regional training programmes such as RUFORUM; scientific associations such as the AAIS; the AU and its economic arms; the UN organisations; national research and training organisations; major NGOs and CBOs.

b. Establish formal partnerships through Memoranda of Understanding

Appropriate MOUs will be developed and negotiated with different categories of potential partners to form the basis of partnership.

c. Develop informal linkages through collaborative projects

ASA will seek to develop collaborations with well-placed organisations in areas of mutual interest even before formal partnerships are considered. Such collaborations will stimulate the development of more formal relations.

Relations with icipe

ASA should enhance its association with icipe through mutually beneficial partnerships.